It isn't easy to turn Washington around on a dime. If nothing else, give Republican House Speaker John Boehner marks for trying.

It wasn't a week ago that Mr. Boehner was plodding through White House deliberations, grasping for GOP support, facing the growing likelihood his party would be saddled with either a flawed debt bargain or blame for causing a default. By last night, Mr. Boehner was on the precipice of passing the only workable debt plan in town and shifting responsibility for further debt fallout across the aisle. Whatever the final result, Mr. Boehner's week-long struggle to pull his party behind him is worthy of some study.

That struggle began with the Ohio Republican's willingness to pack in a losing strategy. He'd invested valuable time and capital in his White House talks, and the pressure from the president, the press and the bipartisan crowd to grab a "big deal" was enormous. He looked very near to succumbing to the seductive pull of a grand Washington "compromise."

Instead, he realized that this White House had no intention of agreeing to serious debt reduction and that it cared primarily about tax hikes. His decision to call off the talks earned him some catcalls, but it reset the political dynamic.

For weeks, House Republicans had feared their only choice would be between a problematic Boehner-Obama deal or their principles. Many had chosen to risk default in the name of the latter. By outing the White House and pushing a legitimate Republican alternative, Mr. Boehner gave his members a new choice: They could rally behind their leader for a deal that was good (if not perfect), or they could hand victory to President Obama.

President Obama took it from there. His week of lashing out at the GOP—in a press conference, in a national address, in a veto threat—only clarified the stakes for members and began earning Mr. Boehner standing ovations. The desperate quality of the Democratic attacks confirmed for House Republicans that the speaker was on to something. His blunt warnings about the political fallout of default helped further focus minds, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's support for the Boehner plan reassured House members that he'd back them in the Senate.

Also helping was the House leadership's deft handling of the bill itself. Instead of legislation to thrill hard-liners, Mr. Boehner stuck to a framework already agreed upon by most Democrats—thereby robbing them of an easy excuse for rejecting it.

He simultaneously inserted enough provisions—such as a promise for a future vote on a balanced budget amendment—to allow some cut-cap-balance members to feel confident they were holding to their own promises. His willingness this week to retool the bill, so that Congressional Budget Office analysts would confirm it lived up to its goal of $900 billion in savings, began reassuring conservative members that they were voting for something real.

He got a final boost from the unrealistic wing of the conservative movement, which overplayed its hand. Conservative bloggers and Washington pressure groups love to complain about the GOP "establishment," never acknowledging that they've become an establishment all their own. Without asking voter permission, they've fashioned themselves the heavies of the tea party movement, issuing diktats and punishing deviations—according to their whims. Witness this week's leaked emails from a staffer for the conservative Republican Study Committee encouraging activists to tell freshmen Republicans to vote against the Boehner bill, and to "target" any who did not.

Those Republican freshmen—many sporting sterling conservative credentials—are getting a bit hacked off that the Club for Growth or House staffers are dictating the positions they must take. Many rightly saw Mr. Boehner's plan as a credible first step toward deficit reduction—one that denies Democrats the ability to hang default on the GOP, and that also positions Republicans for the 2012 election and real reform. They began to wonder who made Heritage Action the arbiter of all things conservative, and some broke for Mr. Boehner.

By Thursday evening, Mr. Boehner had moved a significant portion of his conference, though he proved unable to net the final few votes. Some remained wedded to their vow to never vote for a debt-ceiling hike. Some, like presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, continued to insist, ludicrously, that a failed deal wouldn't be a problem. It is an open question if Mr. Boehner could have ever won these votes, no matter how big, deep and dramatic a budget-cutting deal he presented.

What he did do this week is position his party to take credit for a bill that averts a crisis, cuts more spending than any Democrat ever thought possible, and exposes the White House's insincerity on the deficit and economic prosperity. The Republicans who yesterday undermined bill now bear sole responsibility for whatever political fallout comes next.

rickrick91 saidBoehner's six month "band aid" plan would fail to prevent the U.S. from being downgraded by the credit rating agencies.It would fail to stabilize the economy and it would fail to reassure the markets.

It's bad policy and a disgrace to the reputation of the Republican party.

The US will likely be downgraded anyway, in part because of the current administration accelerating the debt increase and ignoring the key recommendations of the debt commission.

rickrick91 saidBoehner's six month "band aid" plan would fail to prevent the U.S. from being downgraded by the credit rating agencies.It would fail to stabilize the economy and it would fail to reassure the markets.

It's bad policy and a disgrace to the reputation of the Republican party.

The blinders you have on is truly astounding. If Obama loses in 2012, are you going to have a complete meltdown? This is an American problem not isolated to or to blamed on any one political party.

rickrick91 saidBoehner's six month "band aid" plan would fail to prevent the U.S. from being downgraded by the credit rating agencies.It would fail to stabilize the economy and it would fail to reassure the markets.

It's bad policy and a disgrace to the reputation of the Republican party.

The US will likely be downgraded anyway, in part because of the current administration accelerating the debt increase and ignoring the key recommendations of the debt commission.

Let's be clear. If a downgrade occurs, it will be because of Tea Bagger intransigence, which 70% of the American people recognizing that.